The Blueprint - Special Edition: Messages From Endorsed Candidates

Messages from The Governor & Attorney General

On July 18th, the WBA Board of Directors voted to formally endorse Governor Scott Walker and Attorney General Brad Schimel in their reelection bids this fall.

If you haven’t already checked them out in the latest edition of our print publication, Badger Builder, you can read exclusive messages from the candidates below.

GOVERNOR SCOTT WALKER

Thank you for helping people here in Wisconsin live their piece of the American Dream. Owning a home is exciting. Building your own home is even more exciting.

Working together, we have improved policies that make it easier and more affordable to build a new home. With your help, we can keep working together to help the next generation of home owners.

Overall, Wisconsin is working! Literally. More people are in the workforce than ever before and we’ve had five months of unemployment below 3%. The previous record was 3% under Governor Tommy Thompson back in the 1990s.

Employment is up. Wages are up. Now, we just need to get more people into the workforce – particularly into the building trades. We are ready to partner with the members of the Wisconsin Builders Association to get the job done!

We have a 3-part Wisconsin Workforce Plan.

First, Strengthen Traditional Education and Training. This is why we invested more actual dollars into schools than ever before – plus we doubled the amount for youth apprenticeships and for Fab Labs. Next, we want to expand youth apprenticeships into 7th and 8th grades (we already fund academic and career plans in 6th grade).

Plus, we increased funding for the Wisconsin Fast Forward worker training program by 40%. We plan to use a portion of that to help train people to help build homes.

Second, Break Barriers to Employment. We are helping people with intellectual and physical disabilities enter the workforce. We are training people within the corrections system near the end of their sentences. And we now require able-bodied, working-age adults to be employed at least 30 hours and to be able to pass a drug test to receive public assistance. With 80,000 to 100,000 jobs openings on our state website, there is no reason that we can’t find a career for everyone in the state.

Third, Marketing and Recruitment for Talent. We are now marketing to recruit talent from Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul and surrounding areas. Our focus is on Midwest millennials, graduates of Wisconsin colleges and universities and retiring military personnel and their families.

Wisconsin offers more benefits for Veterans than any other state. We are going to military bases to sell our benefits and recruit talent to Wisconsin. Veterans can be a significant addition to the home building industry.

Working together, we can solve the workforce challenges. And it is better than the alternative.

Remember before we took office when it was hard to find people who could afford to build a home? Remember when unemployment capped at 9.3% at the start of 2010? Remember when our graduates had to move outside of Wisconsin to pursue their careers?

Those days are gone. We don’t want to go backwards. Instead, we want to keep moving Wisconsin forward.

Together, we can keep Wisconsin working for generations to come. Thank you for your support!

ATTORNEY GENERAL BRAD SCHIMEL

Every year, employers lose out on $26 billion from consequences of prescription pain medication abuse, including absenteeism, diminished productivity, and lost earnings from premature death. Beyond the financial cost, however, there is a human cost of the state’s drug epidemic. Heroin and meth abuse has been wreaking havoc in metro areas and rural communities across our state, and has probably affected your colleagues, your neighbors, your clients, or perhaps, your own family. That’s why I put drug dealers on notice when I was elected in 2014, and have made the fight against opioids and meth the top priority at the Wisconsin Department of Justice during my first term as your attorney general.

The problem isn’t just cracking down on how drugs make their way into Wisconsin, and how they get distributed. We’ve been working with other Attorneys General across the country to improve access to addiction treatment so that people who need help can get it, and so that the right people are there to provide it. At the Department of Justice, we have not only expanded public education, but also cut off supply at the source. A series of drug takeback programs has collected twelve semi-trucks full of unused prescription drugs. Abuse of prescription opiates is how too many get started on a lethal downward spiral that ends with overdose or fatalities from reckless behavior. We’re making sure those drugs are only taken with a prescription by the intended recipient.

But, despite our efforts on the streets and in our communities, the glaring fact remains that drug abuse continues to spread. We’ve taken great strides, and I fear the circumstances had we not boldly fought back each and every day. Though we’ve seen a real change and impact on how drugs are made available and distributed across Wisconsin and the Midwest, that fight never stops.

I’m proud to have been your partner in making our state safer, stronger, and more prosperous over the last four years and I am honored to receive the endorsement of the Wisconsin Builders Association. The men and women of this industry are hardworking contributors to communities all across the state. Your support is part of the broad, bipartisan campaign we're running in every single county of Wisconsin.

As your attorney general, I'm working hard, every day, to help make Wisconsin a safer place to live, work, go to school, build a business and retire. We work collaboratively with law enforcement agencies and partners across the state and have made significant progress over the last four years.

While I'm proud of our work fighting opioid addiction, cracking down on meth and other drug distribution, prosecuting internet crimes against children, testing old criminal evidence, and addressing sexual assault on our college campuses, I know there is more work to be done. That's why I'm running this fall and I'm grateful to the Wisconsin Builders Association for their support.

Online Giving Now Available for Building a Better Wisconsin PAC

Online donations are now available for the Wisconsin Builders Association's political action committee, Building a Better Wisconsin!

You can make a personal individual contribution to the PAC by using a personal, individual, or single-member LLC credit card. All contributions go to the Building a Better Wisconsin PAC and are distributed to pro-housing candidates running for Wisconsin elected office (governor, attorney general, state senate, and state assembly).